Sunday, February 27, 2011

Daytripper is a mysterious little book. I read the first three issues when they came out, and though I was absolutely intrigued by what was happening in the story, the way each installment came and ended without explanation made me not want to have to work through the serialization. Rather, I wanted to get it all at once. It’s a book where the payoff is going to require some faith, and where the individual moments matter to the cumulative whole. I didn’t want them lost in the gaps between.

This creator-owned comic is by the Brazillian twins Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, who have electrified the world of graphic literature over the last several years with their work together, separate, and in collaboration with others. Daytripper is their first truly substantial work as a solo team. It tells the story of Brás de Oliva Domingos, but it does so in a fractured fashion. Time bends here, the narrative pieces are scattered. When we first meet Brás, on his 32nd birthday, he is an obituary writer on the way to see his father, a famous novelist, receive a lifetime achievement award. In chapter two, he is 21 and seeing the world. The youngest we see him, not counting the oft repeated tale of his birth--a blackout baby who emerges into the darkness like the light, or even life, itself--is at age 11, the oldest age 76. We jump through time to watch his romances and failures, his family benchmarks and even the lows of an important friendship. Each chapter of Daytripper has a definite end, finite in its way, and one which I shan’t reveal here, but you’ll discover it soon enough. Fittingly, only the very last ending deviates from the pattern.

It takes a while to get an explanation as to what is happening. The book is a string of second chances and missed opportunities--though never squandered ones. For as spectacular as some of the failures, they never come with a sense that someone wasn’t trying. It’s more that things just don’t turn out as expected. It’s why you never wait to go for whatever needs going for, events may turn before you get the opportunity to seize it. It’s at the end of the eighth chapter when we start to get a sense of what it all means, how Brás’ each and every action creates a reaction, and Daytripper is the study of that resonance. I could have done without the penultimate entry, but that just might be personal taste. The dreamy ninth chapter is the only time where I feel the book has to strain for its mood, the only time the creators are trying to create the feeling of strange wonder that so naturally blossoms in the rest. I feared it was the last chapter, actually, and was frightened that the whole thing would fall apart.

Thankfully, we had one more step to go, and honestly, had I jumped from eight to ten, from age 47 to the big 76, Daytripper would be just about perfect. It seems a minor complaint, however, like whining that an otherwise spectacular car race is ruined because no one crashed during the second-to-last lap. Plus, that eighth chapter also has some of the most beautiful artwork in the comic. The duo’s impressionistic linework and Dave Stewart’s striking, painterly coloring really come alive when let loose to roam the unbridled realm of imagination. Then again, that seems so wrong to say, because it’s very much alive throughout. Daytripper isn’t a comic where you ever wonder why its creators opted for this particular medium. Every watery ink scratch undulates with passion for the form. Perhaps it’s because they are twins that Bá and Moon manage to inspire two diametrically opposed reactions at the same time. Every panel of Daytripper compels you to stop and stare at the beauty of the drawing while also pushing you on to the next. You want to stop and smell all the roses, and yet you must go forward, you have to see the ways the scenes play out.

In that sense, while reading the book, we are also living the lesson that Brás must learn. Don’t let any of the details of this existence pass you by without noticing them, but also don’t ever accept those details as being the last. There is always more to be seen just out of frame.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

LITTLE BY LITTLE

The Portland International Film Festival is winding down this weekend (closing party tonight, details here). Since the Portland Mercury aren't archiving the capsule reviews they ran in the paper, I decided to post mine here. I covered six films in total for them, and we had only 50 words to give our impression. It was a challenge at first, but fun once I got the hang of it:

HIS & HERS: A neat idea: a documentary collage of real Irish women, arranged in chronological order from birth to death, talking about their fathers, husbands, and sons. The effect is of a shared sisterhood, but a little variety would have added some sorely lacking depth.

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER An Israeli paper-pusher must ferry the body of a former employee back to her home in Romania. Pulling more heartstrings than legs, director Eran Riklis’ middle-of-the-road trip has angry teenagers, backwoods sheriffs, and a corpse strapped to the top of a van. Still, not quite National Lampoon’s Eastern European Vacation.

INCENDIES This Canadian Oscar nominee spans several decades, two countries, and a lot of complicated politics to expose a dead mother’s secrets, but one plot twist too many turns serious drama into overly earnest pap. Icendies begins as a Leonard Cohen song, but ends up sounding more like Ray Stevens.

POETRY A South Korean grandmother discovers she has Alzheimer’s right around the same time she finds out her grandson is a creep best forgotten. In trying times, a newfound love for verse helps her search for meaning. Though slow going, Lee Chang-dong’s drama is worth it for its lyrical, emotional finish.

SILENT SOULS One wouldn’t expect to describe a movie about an amateur poet driving to the seaside with his boss to burn the body of the man’s dead wife as airy, but Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Silent Souls takes a freeform approach to its eulogizing. It’s film as memory: incongruous, enriching, and oddly playful. Then, poof! It's gone.

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s story of a dying man in Thailand takes place in a rarefied state where folk tales and ghost stories mingle with everyday life. Meditative and mysterious, full of long takes and dreamy ideas, this Cannes favorite is as unpredictable as it is enthralling.

The folks at Tales from the Parents Basement have done an all-Oni Press episode, and the final quarter or so is devoted to my work with Joëlle Jones, and a little Nicolas Hitori de love thrown in. Seriously, shout outs to 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, You Have Killed Me, and Spell Checkers.

I think it was last year at Emerald City Comic Con that we first started talking to those guys. So, maybe we'll see them next weekend. Which is a good reminder...Emerald City Comic Con is next weekend.

Current Soundtrack: The Decemberists and their kind of blah The King is Dead

Friday, February 25, 2011

“You could spend your whole life chasing a single story and the only ending you’ll find is your own.”

Comics writer Josh Wagner is best known for his own series Fiction Clemens and the multi-media spin-off Sky Pirates of Neo-Terra, but his new novel reveals a writer with even more varied talents than his graphic bibliography previously suggested. Deadwind Sea has all the visual creativity of Wagner’s sequential storytelling, but perfectly adapted to the chosen medium. Wagner’s narrative is intelligent and imaginative, and his genial prose creates a vivid world of fairy tale and myth.

Deadwind Sea is the story of Sergio and Ivette, the village idiot and the beautiful orphan child who falls in love with him. Set in an undisclosed time in an invented land, the tale takes off after their brief courtship and even briefer marriage. Ivette dies days into the union, and convinced that she can yet be saved, Sergio sets off to find the Land of the Dead. His journey is an ingenious trek across the map of storytelling itself. Wagner creates a Russian doll with words. As one tale is told, another is buried inside, and so on until we are deep into multiple anecdotes, each adding to the thematic growth of the other. Wagner’s lines crackle with the pacing and familiarity of the oral tradition, making Deadwind Sea a kind of missing link between Boccaccio and David Mitchell, whose Cloud Atlas comes to mind for the way multiple narrative lines run into each other like a string of fictional dominoes. It’s a fun trick to watch unfold, each tumble inviting the reader to roll right into the next.

Impressively, Deadwind Sea never gets predictable. Wagner embraces world mythology and science fiction to come up with new scenarios and new metaphors to lead us further along in Sergio’s expedition. It would have been easy for the writer to get lost in all his symbols or to lose track of the many threads he unspools, but as the novel approaches its end, the story picks up genuine steam and somehow the author reels everything back in. Connections are made between elements that previously seemed separate, and characters and concepts take on new meaning. More importantly, there is a real conclusion to Sergio and Ivette’s love story, and it both satisfies and confounds reader expectations while also being unabashedly romantic. The final line of the book is truly lovely, and it brings everything to a finish in just the right way. Deadwind Sea is one of those books where, once you are done, you’ll close the back cover, tap your hand on its surface, and think to yourself how good reading it was. Warmth emanates from its pages.

It should also be noted that Josh Wagner is part of the movement to promote creative visions and individual ownership in comics, and that DIY attitude is also brought to this book. Let me tell you from experience, that’s a difficult garden to tend, the prose biz is not an easy one. But Deadwind Sea is a professional looking publication with enough polish to rival anything from a big publishing house. Like his own hero, the author has taken a chance and taken charge of his own fate, and you should be like the travelers Sergio meets on his expedition and lend a hand (and an eye, and an ear) to get him on his way.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

CLIMBING UP THE CINEMA WALLS

I have been absolutely buried the last couple of weeks in terms of movie viewing, and I am way, way behind on my reviewing. In addition to six capsule reviews for the Portland Mercury, I wrote up eleven films from the Portland International Film Festival for Criterion Cast. You can check them all out here on my author's page. That's seventeen movies in less than three weeks, in addition to everything else. Try it sometime, it will break your head!

* Guest of Cindy Sherman, a documentary made by a narcissist who can't handle that his coattail ride doesn't come with its own coat. I got some particularly juicy hate mail for this review since the piece could be considered as a personal attack on the filmmaker. I stand by the assertion that if you're going to be the subject of your own movie and present yourself and your activities as some kind of plea for sympathy or even admiration, then you erase the line between art and artist. You are the art. This has been an ongoing topic of mine. I refer back to my review of Tarnation, written for this blog back in 2005. Feel free to post your thoughts on the subject below. I think it's an interesting topic worthy of discussion.

Joëlle Jones, who drew the cat in the one card above, and I have a table in Artist's Alley, and we'll be bringing all the books we can carry. Joëlle is also taking advance orders on sketches, in case you want to get in before the show starts. Her prices are extremely reasonable. More info here on her blog.

Stop by and say hello. Also, since stock of my non-Joëlle books might be limited, if you want to reserve any in advance, drop me a line - golightly[at]gmail[dot]com.

By the way, my second card there is an unauthorized sneak peak at my comic book with Dan Christensen. Don't tell Oni!

Friday, February 18, 2011

CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS: Michael DeForge's Spotting Deer

I first became aware of Michael DeForge's work sometime last year when Floating World got in a big stack of Lose #1. If I'm being honest, I didn't get it right away, but I was intrigued enough that I kept looking at the cartoonist's different books as they came in. My opinion quickly changed upon reading Lose #2 and then a few minicomics. With each successive release, Michael's work revealed itself more and more. He tells bitterly funny and achingly personal stories using a surreal framework. His cartooning has an organic morphability. From panel to panel, his images change, grow, metamorphose, leading the reader through a bizarre world that is utterly other-dimensional but never weird for its own sake.

One of his most recent releases, Spotting Deer, released through Koyama Press is a baffling comic book trinket. It's the explanation and study of a "terrestrial slug" that, for whatever evolutionary purpose, has adopted a form resembling a deer, antlers and all. The comic--printed in color and over-sized, like a 10" record--explains the scientific properties and life cycle of the creature, as well as its function in the environment and its cultural significance. It's a work at once straight-faced and impish, particularly as DeForge begins to fuss around with such an animal's place in techno culture.

There is also a riddle buried in the center of the book, a self-reflexive scene with the "author" that suggests that maybe there is a deeper metaphor here. Is the deer merely a chimera, a representation of lonely creativity, of the impossible and obsessive nature of invention? The tail-end "Bibliography" is not a list of books, but a semi-evisceration of the crazed creator. His work is merely a trash heap of ideas for the spotting deer to feed on.

Unsurprisingly, the art in Spotting Deer is spectacular. DeForge's coloring is of particular note. He uses bright rainbow hues and dot patterns to enhance the unsettling psychedelic-appearance of the drawngs, going to darker grays and blues when the material grows chillier. The effect is both enticing and overwhelming.

DeForge is definitely a creator to watch, and though Spotting Deer may be a strange introduction to his work, it's all strange, so really, just start grabbing his comics and go with it. His comics are likely to mean many different things to many different people--my interpretation will likely be way off base for some, and when I read Spotting Deer again, I may decide it means something else entirely--but that's the beauty of them. This isn't art that just goes one way, but, once consumed, it evolves beyond the static page, an ever-changing personal code of text and symbols developing its own cartoon mythology.

Monday, February 14, 2011

VALENTINE'S DAY WEBCOMICS: AS YOUR HEART ACHES OVER LIFE'S FATE, I KNOW WE NEVER HAD MUCH TIME

It's February 14, and it seems no better time to focus this blog's attention on some great web cartoonists whose creations fit the theme of the day.

I've been digging Emily Carroll's work since I stumbled across it this past summer, and she has a brand-new short story posted especially for her Valentine. It's titled "Anu-Anulan & Yir's Daughter" and you can launch the comic starting here.

Once you are there, you can also start nosing around Emily's sites and finding her other comics. Her work is always surprising and fun, and her web shorts experiment with comic book storytelling in ways that are fresh and use the online format to its best advantage. Most web comics stick to conventional layouts, something that will lend itself to traditional printing in the future. Emily works in clickable space, and when you look at something like her Gabriel Garcia Marquez adaptation and how she uses the blood to draw the reader's eye through the scrolldown, it creates a remarkable effect.

Her drawing is also dynamite. Her style has the vibrancy of anime and video games, but with the color of the 1980s and the psychedelic design of the 1960s. This is evident in her pin-up for an upcoming Madman special I helped curate. Mike Allred teased the image below at his blog, but it only shows you about 1/5 of the entire piece. I pushed Emily in Mike's direction, and when she turned in her drawing, it made me look like an absolute genius.

My friend Megan Levens has a more traditional drawing style and a more traditional comic strip. Megan has been publishing "Somewhere in Between," her semi-autobiographical romance strip, for a little while now. The story is developing slowly, with each installment both advancing the plot and serving as an individual strip, much like the newspaper soap opera serials of the past. In the first few installments, Molly loses her job, realizes her relationship is terrible, and generally sees her artistic and romantic dreams go bust. The ongoing narrative is about what happens next.

It's not just the type of story and format that reminds me of the best of the past. Megan's clean drawing style also evokes older work, embracing the stylized yet reality-based renderings of 1950s romance comics and also the prettiness of classic advertising and magazine illustration. Her strip makes me want to tell sappy stories full of tears and broken hearts, something akin to a Douglas Sirk movie, free of irony and full of bald emotion.

Add "Somewhere in Between" to your RSS feed, and also follow Megan on Facebook.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

IMAGE FANTOME: BUILT ON SHIFTING SANDS

This past Christmas I was lucky enough to win a random blog draw from the mighty Mike Hawthorne, wherein Mike would do a commission of my choice. Since I already had an Audrey Hepburn drawing from Mike, I opted for Shade the Changing Man. Mike posted it here, and I am not posting it below:

Mike is a truly awesome artist who should be much more famous in comics than he is. At Oni, he drew the fantastic romantic comedy Three Days In Europe and also his own book, Hysteria, which later had a home at Image. I even wrote the intro to the Queen & Country volume he drew. He's a creator you should definitely support. You always know he's going to bring his best work. He's currently drawing some Conan comics for Dark Horse.

I actually worked on a reboot of Shade the Changing Man a few years back, and I got through one very rough draft of a story outline with Bob Schreck and Brandon Montclare before word came down from on high that old Vertigo characters were off limits. At different times, both Duncan Rouleau and Christopher Mitten had expressed interest in being involved as an artist. As I love the old Vertigo series that Peter Milligan wrote, I chose not to step on that or mess around with his characters, but instead tried to create a whole new Meta where the story ideas embodied by the character's different versions collided in a fractured realm of crazy. I bit off more than I could chew in the first draft, so maybe it was for the best that it stopped there. Plus, Milligan recently brought Shade back in Hellblazer, and it's been fantastic.

Now, how do I convince Mike's Comic Twart fellows to do a Shade the Changing Man week?

Current Soundtrack: The Raveonettes, "Forget That You're Young;" The Go! Team, Rolling Blackouts

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

34TH PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 34th Portland International Film Festival officially starts tomorrow, February 10, and runs through February 26. The full line-up of movies is fairly extensive, including multiple programs featuring short films.

This year, I am joining forces with two other press outlets to review some of the selections, which range from the new Abbas Kiarostami release to a flick about mutated Japanese school girls. I've been watching screenings pretty much every day for nearly two weeks now. I may go blind, but I am soldiering on.

You can read short reviews by me as part of the the Portland Mercury's festival coverage, online through the link but also in the paper. Not sure if all of the reviews will be in both. I think depending on the screening schedule, some will just be online. Several went up today: Incendies, The Human Resources Manager, and His & Hers.

I am also writing longer reviews for the guys over at Criterion Cast, the first of which also went live today. You can access them at the Cast's PIFF microsite, along with the rest of their coverage, or jump direct to my author's page.

I'll be updating regularly over there for the next couple of weeks. Not sure how often the Merc will update their online list. I know I just sent them the blurb for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which I saw this morning. Speaking of, did you see this awesome poster Chris Ware designed for the theatrical release?

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Comics Blog is the latest place to review You Have Killed Me and give it high marks. You can read the whole piece here, but if you want a taste before heading over:

Given that this narrow genre is over 70 years old, it’s no surprise, unfortunately, that the elements that make film noir so good are becoming tired and maybe a little trite.

This didn’t stop author Jamie S. Rich and artist Joelle Jones from finding a way to breathe new life into the genre in the form of a graphic novel in their 2009 release, You Have Killed Me.

The wit that comes through Rich’s writing is only enhanced by Jones’s charismatic and detailed illustrations. The dialogue between characters has all the sarcastic wit and deadpan flair that make film noir so satisfying. The story is unraveled one frustrating piece at a time, keeping the reader just as in the dark as the hapless detective.

Monday, February 07, 2011

John Arcudi wrote one of my favorite “forgotten” comics of the 1990s. Major Bummer, his series with Dough Mahnke, was a humorous take on the “average joe gets superpowers” concept; it was funny, action-packed, and at its core, like John’s best work, human. A God Somewhere, his creator-owned graphic novel with Peter Snejbjerg, takes that same basic concept and flips it around. This is the serious sibling to Bummer, a harsh examination of absolute power being visited on the common man and corrupting absolutely.

Smartly jettisoning any convoluted origin or explanation, A God Somewhere drops special abilities on Eric Forster by way of an explosion. Whether caused by an outside force or emanating straight from Eric, it’s a shared disaster that takes many lives while also changing his. A religious man, Eric thinks that he is somehow blessed and starts doing good with his new abilities. At first, everyone loves him, but soon he starts to sense the fear that some harbor. He begins to resent that fear, and so he starts to purposely live up to those dark expectations.

There have been plenty of other comics about superheroes turned bad, but Arcudi’s is unique for its subtle use of religion to question the vagaries of human nature. Eric is ultimately mercurial, selfish, and cruel--traits we all too often share with the supreme beings we invent to govern our moral lives. This is the central conundrum of A God Somewhere: is Eric the way he is because that’s the way he is, or is it the way other people view him that warps his mind? Arcudi uses flashbacks to give us insight into his character, and he also explores the core relationships in Eric’s life. It’s not so much a book about one man as it is about four friends: Eric’s smarter and more responsible younger brother Hugh; Hugh’s wife Alma; and their best friend Sam. Much of the narrative is through Sam’s eyes. He is the human assistant who at first takes advantage of his closeness to the muscle-bound cause célèbre, only to become the victim of his own hubris. He’s also the only compassionate pair of eyes left to forgive Eric’s decline.

The art for A God Somewhere is by the Danish team of Peter Snejbjerg and colorist Bjarne Hansen. Snejbjerg’s draftsmanship is impeccable. His grasp of anatomy and expressions gives true life to the characters, and his intuition about page layout and his impressionistic approach to violence and gore lend a flare to the narrative. Hansen uses color to effect mood, embracing monotone and shadow to amp up the more dangerous scenes in the book. The killing goes way over the top, but that’s as it should be if this concept is to be examined with true seriousness. It’s never sensationalistic, however; the carnage is meant to make the reader queasy, and it works.

This done-in-one comic has a strong story arc, finishing in a sweet spot that sews up both the plot and thematic structure of the book in a way that doesn’t leave the reader wanting. It’s a book that tackles some tough subjects by a couple of guys tough enough to do so. Surprisingly, A God Somewhere was published under DC’s recently shuttered Wildstorm imprint. It’s often forgotten that Wildstorm was a place where creators were occasionally afforded the chance to go out on a limb of their own making. A God Somewhere got little fanfare on its release last summer, despite Arcudi’s popular ongoing work on Mike Mignola’s B.P.R.D. series. It’s too bad, this is one that deserves to be unearthed and reappraised.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: HARVEY AWARDS

The Harvey Awards have opened up there ballot nominations for this year, and it's time for all comics professionals to start deciding what they think deserves attention in the various categories. The ballots went online this morning (I think), and I spent the last couple of hours going over my book shelves and my Goodreads account trying to figure out what I should vote for.

Here is my tentative list. I still have some holes. I'm also including a list of other books to consider at the bottom. Note that these largely reflect my tastes, so yes, some of your favorites might be left off. I am opening up the comments section for people to post other choices. I'd like to keep the focus on creator-owned comics as much as possible, but feel free to have a wide field. I want fans and pros alike to chime in--though professionals, keep in mind that it doesn't take a huge voting block to get a book on the final ballot. You gotta turn in these things, and vote for yourself and your colleagues, if you want to get noticed.

Also, I can't list everyone I want to list, so if you see a title that shows up once or twice, consider who else might have worked on the book. For instance, Ghost Projekt shows up for lettering and coloring, but consider also Joe Harris and Steve Rolston for writing and drawing; Sean Murphy is mentioned for his Vertigo work, but I couldn't fit his awesome colorist, Dave Stewart. In other words, take my list and look at the books yourself and weigh all options.

Help me with my blanks, too! Who was a great inker this year? I see mainly comics with cartoonists doing their own inking. I want to know who some great traditional inkers are!

11) BEST SYNDICATED STRIP OR PANEL (LIST TITLE OF DAILY OR WEEKLY STRIP)

[I confess, I don't read any]

12) BEST ANTHOLOGY (ANY MAGAZINE, COMIC BOOK, OR BOOK WITH WORK BY THREE OR MORE CREATORS, AT LEAST 50% OF WHICH IS NEW – LIST TITLE AND PUBLISHER)1. Papercutter, Tugboat Press2. Jam!, Oni Press3. AX: Alternative Manga, vol. 1, Top Shelf4. CBGB, Boom!5.

My confession...

Author of prose novels and comic books like Cut My Hair, It Girl & the Atomics, You Have Killed Me, and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Jamie's most recent novel is the serialized book Bobby Pins and Mary Janes, and his most recent graphic novels are the sci-fi romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Madame Frankenstein with Megan Levens; and the weird crime comic Archer Coe & the Thousand Natural Shocks with Dan Christensen. He also co-created Lady Killer with Joëlle Jones.